Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843
TextNOTES ON A TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES
BY JOSEPH DOWNES.
Author of "The Mountain Decameron."
Llangaddock, Carmarthenshire, September 9
"And this is the 'disturbed district!'—this is the seat of war!—the 'Agrarian civil war!'—the headquarters of the 'Rebecca rebels!" I soliloquized, about the hour of one A.M. on the night of September 9, 1843—a night of more than summer beauty, sultry and light as day—while thrusting my head from the window of "mine inn" the Castle, in this pretty picturesque little village-town, to coin a term. The shadows of the rustic houses, and interspersed corn-stacks, trees, and orchards, stretched across the irregular street, without a causeway, in unbroken quiet; not a sound was heard but the voice of an owl from a "fold" in the very heart of "the town," and the low murmur of the river chafing against the buttresses of an antique bridge at the end of the said "street;" while an humble bow window of a shop, where at nightfall I had observed some dozens of watches (silver, too!) displayed, without a token of "Rebecca" terrorism appearing, was seen jutting into the road, only hidden, not defended, by such a weak apology for a shutter, as would not have resisted a burglar of ten years' old.
It was now Sunday morning, and the clean-swept neatness of the sleeping village, whose inhabitants we had seen busily engaged in this pleasing preparation for the day of rest, as we strolled there at twilight, confirmed the assurance of profound and fearless peace; for only in that happy condition of society could the mind be supposed disengaged enough to regard those minute decencies of rural English life. With a smile of well-pleased wonder at the exaggerations of the press, which were persuading the Londoners that the "dogs of war" were really "let slip" among these our green mountains and pastoral valleys, after enjoying this prospect of a village by moonlight at the foot of the majestic Mynydd Du, (black mountain,) whose range is seen by day, towering at a few miles' distance, and hugging myself in the security of life and purse, which warriors (if they would cross-question their own great hearts) do really prize as much as I do, I returned to bed, (the heat of which had first driven me forth to this air-bath of half an hour.) "And this is the seat of insurrection!" I reiterated sarcastically against all English and all Welsh purveyors of "news" for terror-loving readers.
I have a huge deal of patriotism in my composition—also, a great love of rural quiet, joined to some trifling degree of cowardice, as my family pretend; but that I impute to my over-familiarity with them. "No man is great to his valet," has been remarked. The domestics of Alexander wondered what the world found to wonder at, in the little man their master. However this may be, I confess it was very pleasant to me to find peace unbroken in these my old haunts. Here I had many a summer night enacted, as recorded in my "Mountain Decameron," the amateur-gipsy, "a long while ago," bivouacking in their wildest solitudes, between some wood and water, on moonlight greensward, or reading at our tents' mouth by a lamp, while two boys, my sons, slept soundly within; and in the blindness of human nature, thus sneering against the "gentlemen of the press," sneered myself to sleep, "shut up in measureless content."
"Most lame and impotent conclusion!" The peace of nature in that sweet night was weak assurance of any kindred feeling in the bosom of man. It so happened (as I afterwards learned) that felony—bloody felony—was at that very time busy, at no great distance; that murder, that arson in its direst character, were stamping their first damnable characters on a province noted, through ages, for innocence and simple piety; that the first victim to rebellion was, at that moment, bleeding to death under the hands of those wearing the shapes of men; that victim innocent, helpless, and—a woman!!
But of this in the course of my narrative. Sunday, September 10.
As I proceeded from Llangaddock this afternoon, in company with my son, we found no slackness in the attendance on the chapels, which keep rising in all directions in the principality. The groups issuing from them, survey us with surly eyes, as Sabbath-breakers, for travelling on the "Lord's day." It is curious to reflect that these very persons who have just been listening to the preachers of a gospel of peace, with white upturning eyes and inward groans, who present countenances deeply marked, as it seems to us, with the spirit of severe sanctity, betrayed by their sour looks at us, and not rarely vested in two or three expressions at us among themselves—I say, how curious a fact in the pathology of minds does it present, that these very men will (some of them) reappear in a few hours, or days, in the characters of felons, midnight rebels to law and order, redressing minor wrongs committed by a few against themselves, by a tenfold fouler wrong against all men, against society itself. For a system which consists in defying the laws, is a systematic waging of war against the very element that binds men in society—it is a casting off of civilization, a return to miserable dependence on animal strength alone, on brutish cunning, or midnight hiding in the dark, for all we enjoy. It seems well known that the farmers themselves are the Rebeccaites, aided by their servants, and that the Rebecca is no other than some forward booby, or worse character, who ambitiously claims to act the leader, under the unmanly disguise of a female, yielding his post in turn to other such petticoat heros. The "Rebecca" seems no more than a living figure to give effect to the drama, as boys dress up an effigy and parade it as the Guy Fawkes.
It is curious to witness the chop-fallen aspect of the poor toll-collectors. The "looking for" of a dark hour is depicted on the female faces, at least, and a certain constrained civility mixed with sullenness, marks the manners of the male portion near large towns; for elsewhere, humble civility has always met the traveller in this class of Welsh cottagers. The frequent appearance of dragoons, the clatter of their dangling accoutrements of war, and grotesque ferocity of hairy headgear, and mock-heroic air of superiority to the more quietly grotesque groups of grey-coated men, and muffled up Welsh women gives a new feature to our tour in this hitherto tranquil region, where a soldier used to be a monster that men, women, children, all alike, would run to the cottage door to look at. A very different sort of look than that of childish curiosity now greets these gallant warriors, at least from the farmers. "'Becca" is the beloved of their secret hearts—'Becca has already given them roads without paying for them! 'Becca is longed for by every honest farmer of them all, whenever he pays a toll-gate. And these fellows are come sword in hand, to hunt down poor innocent 'Becca! Well may the Welshman's eyes lower on them, whatever may be the looks of the Welsh women.
We have now rode through several toll-gates, the ruins of the toll-houses only remaining, and rode scatheless! No toll asked—no darting forth of a grim figure from his little castle, at the shake of the road by tramp of horses—like the spider showing himself at his hole, on the trembling of his web to the struggle of a luckless fly. Nothing appeared but a shell of a house, with blackened remains of rafters, or a great heap of stones, not even a wall left—and huge stumps of gate-posts, and not a hand extended, or voice raised to demand payment for our use of a road!—that payment which the laws of the land had formally pronounced due! Had new laws been passed? Had a new mode arisen of discharging the debt we had incurred by the purchase of the use of so much road for two horses? Nothing of the kind! A mob at midnight had thrown down the barrier law had built; and law dared not, or neglected to—erect it again! "Rebecca," like Jack Cade, had pronounced her law—"sic volo, sic jubeo"—and we rode through, by virtue of her most graceless Majesty's absolute edict—cost free. It was really a very singular feeling we experienced on the first of these occasions. I assure thee, my reader; believe me, my pensive public! I never was transported—never held up hand at the Old Bailey, or elsewhere; am not conscious of any sinister sort of projections about my skull that phrenologists might draw ugly conclusions on; yet I confess, that after an eloquent burst of Conservative wrath against this strange triumph of anarchy—after looking down on these works of mob law, unreversed, tamely endured—after fancying I saw the prostrate genius of social order there lying helpless—the dethroned majesty of British law there grovelling among the black ruins, insulted, unrestored—left to be trampled over with insolent laughter, by refractory boors, ignorant as savages of that law's inestimable blessing—I say, after all these hurried thoughts and feelings—let me whisper thee, my reader, that a certain scandalous pleasure did creep up from these finger-ends, instinctively groping the pocket for the pre-doomed "thrippence," yea, quite up to this lofty, reasoning, and right loyal sensorium, on leaving the said sum in good and lawful money, snug and safe in my own pocket, instead of handing it over to a toll collector. Let us not expect too much from poor human nature! I defy any man—Aristides Redivivus himself, to ride toll free through, or rather over, a turnpike defunct in this manner, and not feel a pernicious pleasure at his heart, a sort of slyly triumphing satisfaction, spite of himself, as of a dog that gets his adversary undermost; in short—without becoming for the moment, under the Circean chink of the saved "coppers," a rank Rebeccaite! The Lord and the law forgive me, for I surely loved 'Becca at heart at that moment!
My son being a young man about returning to college, it was highly important to conceal this backsliding within; so I launched out the more upon the monster character of this victory of brawny ignorance and stupid rebellion over the spirit of laws—but it wouldn't do. "But you don't look altogether so angry about it as you speak, father," said he, though what he could see to betray any inward chuckling, I am not aware. If the casual saving of a toll could thus operate upon ME, who should, perhaps, never pass there again, can it be wondered at that farmers, to whom this triumph must prove a great annual gain, are Rebeccaites to the backbone, and to a man? I fear they must be more than man, not to cry secretly to this levelling lady "God speed!" And this leads me to more serious reflection on the incomprehensible and fatal conduct of the local authorities in the first instance, in not instantly re-erecting the toll-gates, or fixing chains pro tempore, protecting at whatever expense some persons to demand compliance with the laws, that not for a week, a day, an hour, the disgraceful and dangerous spectacle should be exhibited, of authority completely down-trodden, law successfully defied. Surely the first step in vindication of the dignity of legal supremacy could not be difficult. By day, at least, surely a constabulary force might have compelled obedience. A few military at first, stationed near the gates, would have awed rustic rebels. It is the impunity which this unheard-of palsy of the governing strong hand so long ensured to them, which has fostered riot into rebellion, and rebellion into incendiarism and murder. Is it possible for a thinking man to see these poor and (truth to tell) most money-loving people, saving two or three shillings every time they drive their team to market or lime, by the prostration of a gate, and be at a loss to discover the secret of this midnight work spreading like wildfire? Why, every transit which a farmer makes cost free, is a spur to his avarice, a tribute of submission to his lawless will, a temptation to his ignorant impatience of all payments to try his hand against all. The quiet acquiescence in refusal to pay—the vanishing of toll-house and toll-takers without one magisterial edict—the mere submission to the mob, seems to cry "peccavi" too manifestly, and affords fresh colour to indiscriminate condemnation of all. A bonus in the shape of a toll for horse or team remitted, is thus actually presented, many times a-day, to the rioter, the rebel, the midnight incendiary of toll-houses, for this good work, by the supine, besotted, or fear-palsied local authorities. Shall a man look on while a burglar enters his house, ransacks his till, let him depart, and then, in despair, leave the door he broke open, open still all night for his entrance, and then wonder that burglary is vastly on the increase? The wonder, I think, is that one gate remains; and that wonder will not exist long, if government do not do something more than send down a gentleman to ask the Welsh what they please to want? The temptation forced upon the eyes and minds of a poverty-stricken and greedy people, by this shocking spectacle of the mastery of anarchy over order, in the annihilation of an impost by armed mountain peasants, is in itself a great cruelty; for in all Agrarian risings the state has triumphed at last, inasmuch as wealth and its resources are an over-match for poverty, however furious or savage; hence blood will flow under the sword of justice ultimately, which early vigilance on her part might have wholly spared. "Knock down that toll-house—fire its contents—murder its tenant," seems the voice of such sleepy justice to pronounce, "and neither I, nor my myrmidons will even ask you again for toll! Do this, and you shall not pay!!"
Such was the tacit invitation kindly presented by the first torn down toll-gate that remained in ruins, to every Welsh farmer. The farmer has accepted it, and "justice"—justice keeps her promise religiously, for no toll is demanded. If the law had been violated by trustees, we have a body called parliament strong enough to reform, ay, and punish them, as they, some of them perhaps, richly deserve; but was that a reason for the laws to be annulled, and lawlessness made the order of the day, in so important a matter as public roads, by the very men who are to profit by it, self-erected into judges in their own cause?
Llandilo Vaur. Evening, Sept. 10. Sunday
A scene to turn even a "commercial traveller" (vulgo a bagman) into a "sentimental" one, if any thing could! Clouds that had overcast our ride of the last few miles, kindly "flew diverse" as we reached the bridge over the Towey, that flows at the foot of the declivity on which this romantic town stands. The sun broke forth, and all at once showed, and burnished while it showed, one of the noblest landscapes in South Wales—not the less attractive for being that which kindled the muse of Dyer—on which the saintly eye of a far greater poet had often reposed—the immortal prose-poet bishop, Jeremy Taylor, a refugee here during the storm of the Civil Wars. Golden Grove, his beautiful retreat, with its venerable trees, was in our sight, the green mountain meadows between literally verifying its name by the brilliance of their sunshiny rich grass, where "God had showered the landscape;" to a fantastic fancy, giving the idea of the quivering of the richest leaf gold on a ground of emerald. The humbler Welsh Parnassus of the painter poet, Grongar Hill, towered also in distance. We traced the pastoral yet noble river, winding away in long meanders, up-flashing silver, through a broad mountain valley, dotted with white farms, rich in various foliage, marked as a map by lines, with well-marked hedge-rows; harvest fields full of sheaves, yellowing all the lofty slopes that presented these beautiful farms and folds full to the descending sun; those slopes, surmounted by grand masses of darkness, solemnly contrasted with the gay luxuriance all below; that darkness only the shade of woods, nodding like the black plume over the golden armour of some giant hero of fable, "magna componere parvis."
Nearer, rose directly from the river a noble park, with all the charm of the wild picturesque, from its antique look, its romantic undulations and steepness, its woody mount and ivied ruin of a castle, "bosomed high in tufted trees," half-hidden, yet visible and reflected in the now-placid mirror of a reach of the river.
Being Sunday, a moral charm was added to those of this exquisite natural panorama, from which the curtain of storm-cloud seemed just then drawn up, as if to strike us the more with its flashing glory of sunshine, water, and a whole sky become cerulean in a few minutes. No Sabbath bells chimed, indeed; but the hushed town, and vacant groups come abroad to enjoy the return of that Italian weather we had long luxuriated in, impressed, equally with any music, the idea of Sabbath on the mind. It was hard to believe, revolting to be forced to believe, that this fine scene of perfect beauty and deep repose, as presented to the eye, directed to nature only—to the mind's eye rolling up to nature's God—was also the (newly transfigured) theatre of man's worst and darkest passions; that the army—that odious, hideous, necessary curse of civilization, the severe and hateful guardian of liberty and peace, (though uncongenial to both)—was at that moment evoked by all the lovers of both for their salvation; was even then violating the ideal harmony of the hour, by its foul yet saving presence; was parading those green suburbs, and the sweet fields under those mountain walls, with those clangours so discordant to the holy influences of the hour and scene—emerging in their gay, shocking costume, (the colour of blood, and devised for its concealment,) from angles of rocks, and mouths of bowered avenues, where the mild fugitive from civil war, and faithful devotee of his throneless king, had often wandered, meditating on "Holy Dying"—of "Holy Living" himself a beautiful example—where even still, nothing gave outward and visible sign of incendiarism and murder lurking among those hermitages of rustic life; yet were both in active, secret operation!
In that very park of Dynevor, whose beauty we were admiring from the bridge, a little walk would have led us to—a grave!—no consecrated one, but one dug ready to receive a corpse; dug, in savage threatening of slaughter, for the reception of one yet living—the son of the noble owner of that ancient domain—dug in sight of his father's house, in his own park, by wretches who have warned him to prepare to fill that grave in October! The gentleman so threatened, being void of all offence save that of being a magistrate—a sworn preserver of the public peace!
Equally abhorrent to rational piety, if less shocking, is that air of sourest sanctity which the groups now passing us bring with them out from the meeting-houses.
Ask a question, and a nasal noise between groan and snort seems to signify that they ask to be asked again, a sort of ha—a—h? "long drawn out." The human face and the face of nature, at that hour, were as an east of thunder fronting a west of golden blue summer serenity. The Mawworms of Calvinistic Methodism have made a sort of monkery of all Wales, as regards externals at least. To think a twilight or noonday walk for pleasure a sin, involves the absurdest principle of ascetic folly, as truly as self-flagellation, or wearing horsehair shirts. Not that these ministers set their flocks any example of self-mortification. The greater number of preachers show excellent "condition," the poorest farmers' wives vying with each other in purveying "creature comforts" for these spiritual comforters. Preparing hot dinners, it seems, is not working on the Lord's Day when it is for the preacher; though to save a field of corn, which is in danger of being spoiled if left out, as in some seasons, would be a shocking desecration of that day. Yet, to observe the abstracted unearthly carriage of these men, who seem "conversing with the skies" while walking the streets, one wonders at the contrast of such burly bodies and refined spirits.
To return to the flock from these burly shepherds of souls—this outbreak of a devilish spirit—this crusade against law and order, tolls and tithes, life and property, is a damning evidence against these spiritual pastors and masters, for such they are to the great body of the Welsh common people, in the fullest sense. The Times newspaper has ruffled the whole "Volscian" camp of Dissent, it appears, by thundering forth against them a charge of inciting their congregations to midnight crime. "John Joneses, and David Reeses, and Ap Shenkinses, have sprung up like the men from the dragon's teeth, to repel this charge. It is probable that it was not well founded, for the simple reason, that such daring subornation of crime would have brought themselves into trouble. But what sort of defence is this, even if substantiated? You did not excite your followers to rebellion and arson! You, with your unlimited command of their minds, and almost bodies, why did you not allay, resist, put down the excitement, by whomever raised? That is the gravamen of the charge against you! You who make then weep, make then tremble, puff them with spiritual conceit, or depress them with terrors of damnation just as you please, how comes it that you are powerless all at once in deterring them from wild and bad actions—you, who are all-powerful in inciting them to any thing, since to refrain from violence is easier than to commit it?
The increase of these outrages proves, that not the power, but will, is wanting on your part, to put down this spirit of revenge and revolt. You perceive the current of their ignorant minds setting strongly in toward rapine and rebellion, (the feeler put forth being the toll grievance,) and you basely, wickedly, pander to their passions, by a discreet silence in your rostra, an unchristian apathy; while deeds are being done under your very eyes—in your daily path—which no good man can view without horror; no bold good man in the position which you hold, of public instructors in human duties, could see, without denouncing! And as your boldness, at least, is pretty apparent, whatever your goodness may be, other motives than fear must be sought for this unaccountable suspension of your influence—and I find it in self-interest—love of "filthy lucre." You are "supported by voluntary contribution," and to thwart the passions of your followers, and stem the tide of lawless violence, though your most sacred spiritual duty, is not the way to conciliate—is not compatible with that "voluntary principle" on which your bread depends, and which too often places your duty and your interest in direct opposition."
Llanon, Carmarthenshire
The good woman of our inn in this village has just been apologizing for the almost empty state of her house, the furniture being chiefly sent away to Pembree, whither she and her family hoped to follow in a few days. The cause of her removal was fear of the house being set fire to, it being the property of Mr Chambers, a magistrate of Llanelly, and the "Rebecca's company" had warned all his tenants to be prepared for their fiery vengeance. His heinous offence was heading the police in discharge of his duty, in a conflict that has just occurred at Pontardulais gate, near this place, in which some of the 'Beccaites were wounded. [Since this, farm-houses and other property of this gentleman have been consumed, his life has been threatened, and his family have prevailed on him to abandon his home and native place.] The wounded men, now prisoners, were of this village, the focus of this rebellion that dares not face the day. It is here that the murderous midnight attack was made on the house of a Mr Edwards, when the wretches fired volleys at the windows, where his wife and daughter appeared at their command. They escaped, miraculously it might be said, notwithstanding. The poor old hostess complained, as well she might, of the hardship of being thus put in peril, purely in hostility to her landlord. We slept, however, soundly, and found ourselves alive in the morning; whether through evangelical Rebecca's scruples about burning us out (or in) on a "Lord's Day" night, or her being engaged elsewhere, we knew not.
And here also we rode through a crowd, murmuring hymns, pouring from the chapel, where, no doubt, they had heard some edifying discourse about the "sweet Jesus," and "sweet experiences," and "new birth," the omnipotence of faith to salvation, and all and every topic but a man's just indignation, and a religious man's most solemn denunciation against the bloody and felonious outrages just committed by those very villagers—against the night-masked assassins, who had just before wantonly pointed deadly weapons against unoffending women—against the chamber of a sick man, a husband, and a father!
Llanelly, Sept. 11, Monday
The headquarters of vindictive rebellion, arson, and spiritual oratory! An ugly populous town near the sea, now in a ferment of mixed fear and fury, from recent savage acts of the Rebeccaites against a most respectable magistrate, resident in the town, Mr W. Chambers, jun., the denounced landlord of our old Welsh hostess at Llanon. Two of his farm-houses have been burned to the ground, and his life has been threatened. His grievous offence I stated before. Soldiers are seen every where; and verily, the mixture of brute-ignorance and brute-ferocity, depicted in the faces of the great mass of "operatives" that we meet, seem to hint that their presence is not prematurely invoked. Their begrimed features and figures, caused by their various employments, give greater effect to the wild character of the coatless groups, who, in their blue check shirt-sleeves, congregate at every corner to cabal, rather than to dispute, it seems; for, fond as they are of dissent, (though not one in fifty could tell you from what they dissent, or to what they cleave in doctrine,) there seems no leaning to dissent from the glorious new Rebecca law of might (or midnight surprisals) against right.
In this neighbourhood, our Welsh annals will have to record—the first dwelling-house, not being a toll-house, was laid in ashes; the first blood was shed by "Rebecca's company," as they call the rioters here. And here resides, rants, prays, and preaches, and scribbles sedition, an illiterate fanatic, who is recognised as an organ of one sect of Methodists, Whitfieldites publishing a monthly inflammatory Magazine, called Y Diwygiwr, (the "Reformer!")—God bless the mark!
This little pope, within his little circle of the "great unwashed," is very oracular, and his infallibility a dogma with his followers and readers. How much he himself and his vulgar trash of prose run mad, stand in need of that wholesome reform which some of his English brother-firebrands have been taught in Coldbathfields and Newgate, let my reader judge from the following extract. The Times newspaper did good service in gibbeting this precious morceau, supplied by its indefatigable reporter, in its broad sheet. How great was the neglect of Welsh society, and every thing Welsh, when this sort of war-cry of treason could be raised, this trump of rebellion sounded, and, as it were, from the pulpit "Evangelical," with perfect impunity to the demagogue, thus prostituting religion itself to the cause of anarchical crime!—
"We cannot regard these tumults, with their like in other parts, but as the effects of Tory oppression. Our wish is to see Rebecca and her children arrayed by thousands, for the suppression of Toryism. These are the only means to remove the burden from the back of the country.... Resolve to see the sword of reason plunged in oppression's heart." He goes on to say, "there must be a hard-blowing storm before the high places in State and Church can be levelled," &c. &c. There is the usual twaddle about "moral force," forsooth, under which saving periphrasis, now-a-days, every rebel ranter in field, or tub, or conventicle, insinuates lawless violence without naming it. Jack Cade would have made it the rallying cry of his raggamuffins, so would Wat Tyler, had it been hit upon in his day. The array of thousands is intelligible "to the meanest capacity." The dullest Welsh "copper-man," or collier, or wild farm cultivator, could not miss the meaning. But as to this magical weapon, "moral force," which they are to handle when so arrayed—the brightest capacity must be at a loss to know what it means. How absurd (if he pretends such a thing) to expect that enlightened statesmen will stand reformed, restrained, stricken through, with a new light in politics by the exhibition of these smutty patriots' minds alone!—by the force of conviction, wrought by ascertaining their convictions, (the illuminati of Llanelly coal-works, of Swansea copper-works, of Carmarthen farm-yards,) will instantly tack—put the vessel of State right about, and bring her triumphant into the placid haven of Radicalism! And why physical "array" to wield such shadowy arms as "moral" force? This favourite stalking-horse of incendiary politics is but the secret hiding-place of retreat from the "force of government." The peace, the forbearance it breathes, is like the brief silence maintained—the holding of the breath—by those snugly ensconced within that other horse of famous memory, the Trojan, which served admirably to lay vigilance asleep, and evade the defensive force of the garrison, till the hour came to leap from its protection, and fire the citadel. This "moral force" covert of revolt, is every whit as hollow, as treacherous, as fatal, if trusted to. Inflame, enrage, and then gather together "thousands" of the most ignorant of mankind, pointing to a body, or a class, or a government, as the sole cause of whatever they suffer or dislike, and then—tell them to be moral! peaceable! not to use those tens of thousands of brawny arms, inured to the sledge-hammer; oh, no! tell them that force means to stand still—or disperse—or gabble—any thing but to—fight! And such vile "juggling with us in a double sense" as this, is evangelical morality!